Victim of accidental shooting at Christmas tree stand speaks

The man who accidentally shot himself while loading up his Christmas tree is talking to News 5 from his hospital bed.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. -

The man who accidentally shot himself while loading up his Christmas tree is talking to News 5 from his hospital bed.

59-year-old Michael Bledsoe says he thought he was going to die that night.

The day after Thanksgiving, Bledsoe and his wife went to a Christmas tree lot on Fort Henry Drive in Kingsport and after they picked out a tree, Bledsoe went to their car and folded the passenger seat down so they could haul it home.

He forgot that he'd left his loaded shotgun in the backseat and it went off, hitting him in the leg. "I heard the shot, felt the shot, then I saw the results of the shot. I didn't think I would make it out of that parking lot that night," says Michael Bledsoe.

Bledsoe has had multiple surgeries and is undergoing physical therapy to walk again.

The bullet hit his artery and he spent several days in the intensive care unit at Holston Valley Medical Center in critical condition.